That type of partnership, which is free, is the essence of GRID. And GRID is eager to add more partners to its network. One organization Callanan recently made contact with is the Youth Connection, a nonprofit founded in 2010 by several former employees of the Spot. The Youth Connection works with what it terms "disconnected youth" — kids who are homeless, aging out of foster care or belong to gangs — and helps them find jobs, get their GEDs or enroll in school. The organization's founders dream of securing a building that would allow them to engage kids through the urban arts — breakdancing, graffiti, hip-hop — much like the Spot did in its heyday.
"Denver really likes their silos: You stay over here and I'll stay over here," says Heidi Grove, co-founder of the Youth Connection. "That doesn't get anything done.... You need to eliminate the silos and bring mental health, substance abuse, education and employment, law enforcement, probation and parole to the table to say, 'Here's your expertise, what do you think? What's your perspective?'"
Bryan Butler, Terrance Roberts and John Lewis of the Prodigal Son Initiative work with youth in northeast Park Hill.
Johnny Santos, an outreach worker with the Gang Rescue and Support Project, likes that GRID brings all agencies to the table.
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"This isn't about people getting money," Callanan says. "It's about, how can we partner to stop the violence?"
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The violence is on display every Friday night in the hectic hallways and operating rooms of the Denver Health emergency department. Workers at Denver's trauma center have grown accustomed to a steady parade of bloody bullet holes, stab wounds and baseball-bat beatings. As such, their attitude toward those patients, some of whom they see again and again, hasn't always been compassionate, says ER doctor Katie Bakes.
"There was a lot of negative sentiment about that population among our staff," Bakes says. For decades, the doctors and nurses felt powerless to help those young men and women, many of whom were gang members and continually put themselves in harm's way. So the staff detached themselves emotionally, figuring that the best they could do was patch them up, release them to the streets and pray they didn't come back.
That began to change a few years ago, however, when Callanan's predecessor at GRID approached Bakes with the idea of surveying young people in Denver Health's waiting room about their gang involvement. Bakes didn't think that strategy would work, but she'd recently read about another that she thought might: a program in Oakland called Caught in the Crossfire that had an outreach worker respond to the hospital whenever a young person showed up with a violent injury. The outreach worker would help the youth cope with his or her injury and talk about alternatives to retaliation.
"It struck me as a unique opportunity to take advantage of a teachable moment, when the consequences of their risky behavior are very concrete," Bakes says. Through GRID, she met Gallardo, who offered to teach the Denver Health staff about gangs, why young people join and how they get out. "There are perceptions we all have that are taken from the media that once you get in, you can't get out," Bakes says. "What we learned...is that it's very possible to get out. It's just a matter of finding healthy alternatives."
That knowledge made the staff feel less hopeless — and open to trying a Caught in the Crossfire-type program in Denver. In October 2011, the At-Risk Intervention and Mentoring Program, or AIM, was born. Two GRID-funded outreach workers began rotating spending every Friday night from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. at Denver Health. In January, four more joined. The six outreach workers are also on call.
Bakes calls what they do "a little miracle." Victims of gang violence usually come to the ER by ambulance, and they usually come alone. The outreach workers are so schooled in gang culture that they can pick out a gangster as soon as he or she is wheeled through the door, just by taking stock of what they're wearing, the way they talk or their tattoos. After the doctors have done their thing, the workers pay them a visit.
"Psychologically, they don't know what's going on," says GRASP outreach worker Johnny Santos. "They feel comfortable when we're there." That initial contact isn't about browbeating them into leaving the gang or scaring them straight. Instead, the outreach workers offer a friendly ear and help with the small things. Santos remembers one fourteen-year-old kid who looked like he was on the verge of tears: "I was like, 'You want me to close the door? You want to cry?' And he's like, 'I don't have to cry.' And I said, 'Your homies ain't here. Your mom ain't here. Go ahead and let it out'" — and he did.
If the victims seem receptive, Santos uses an analogy: Gangs are like a bad relationship; they're like that girl about whom everyone says, "Naw, don't go with her, man." He confides that there is no secret to leaving a gang. "We say, 'Just fade away.'" The outreach workers don't heed that advice, though: After the patient is discharged, they continue to follow up with him or her. Santos estimates it takes the average gangbanger two to three years to decide to leave that life — and the friends, money and status that come with it.
